Chosen to be Charmed
by IWillBeCountingStarz
Summary: When Buffy's parents die she's left in the care of her cousins who she isn't aware are the Charmed Ones. Life gets crazy fast for her once she moves into the Halliwell Manor.


In Los Angeles, California a teenage girl sat in the living room of her home, reeling from news that had just been delivered to her by the highway patrol. Her parents had been killed in a car accident and had died at the scene. Now to most, it was probably viewed as a careless error, but to this fourteen year old, she suspected it was an intentional act. This girl in particular is the Slayer, The Chosen One. She is Peyton Elizabeth "Buffy" Halliwell-Summers aka The Vampire Slayer. Due to that this could be a fully intended attack on her. This coming right after she had burned down the gym of her school that had been filled with vampires. This had probably been retribution of that. The same night she had burned the gym down, her watcher Merrick had also died due to a vampire killing him. To have lost her parents on top of this was just the last straw. She was currently having a hard time focusing on the spiel a social worker was making. The woman was speaking but Buffy was only hearing chunks of it at a time. Too lost in her head to pay much attention to Susan.

"Peyton we are trying to get in touch with some of your family." She chose to ignore the use of her first name. As she looked at the woman in confusion before looking away again. "We've managed to track down some of your cousins on your mothers side. Let's see, a Prue, Piper, and Phoebe Halliwell." Susan, the social worker said as she glanced at a paper in her files. Buffy finally looked up at her with a glare.

"I have not seen them since I was at most four years old. Its been at least ten years since I last saw them. Do you really think they would want a teenager they barely even know to take care of when they are in their twenties?" She grouched back to the woman. Susan didn't take any offense to the girl's angry behavior. It was fairly normal in this sort of situation for children to act out and be in terrible moods. She couldn't blame them for it even if she wanted to.  
"Lets wait and see once we can get in touch with them, okay?" Susan tried to comfort the girl who clearly was in no mood for comfort from someone she just met.

Buffy just sighed and got up from the couch, giving up on dealing with this woman, and went to her room upstairs. She was used to feeling alone in the world. With being the slayer she was the only one who had the power and the destiny of taking down the vampires of this world, it was inevitable for her to feel alone. But, this time, she had never felt so utterly alone. First her normal life was taken from her in the form of being the Chosen One, then her watcher was killed, and now her parents. Soon she'll probably be taken away from her home town and have to live hours away with family she basically doesn't know. She laid down on her bed and snuggled up with her stuffed animal, Mr. Gordo and buried herself into the blankets. She couldn't help the tears running down her cheeks. She certainly couldn't help crying herself to sleep.

In San Fransisco the phone rang at a large manor. "Hello?" Prue Halliwell answered the phone with a slight huff. She was slightly annoyed with how late it was for a phone call.

"Hello, is this one of the Halliwells speaking?" A voice on the other end asked.

"Yes this is Prue, can I ask what this is about?" Prue was curious now.

"This is Susan Bell from the Los Angeles department of social services. I am sorry to say that your Aunt Poppy and her husband Hank were just killed in a car crash."

"Oh my god. What about Buffy is she okay? Was she in the car?" Prue asked, highly concerned.  
"Peyton was not in the car at the time, no. She is currently here with me at their house. She was just told about her parents a little bit ago. We've just been trying to reach you due to no other living relatives being present and due to her being only fourteen." Susan told her. "She is obviously upset with the news and I was calling to see if you would be willing to take her in as the only living relatives."

"Of course we'll take Buffy. We'll be there as soon as we can tomorrow." Prue informed the woman.

Susan breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you so much. I didn't want Peyton to have to be placed in a foster home." The social workers constant use of Buffy's first name made Prue wonder if the woman was stubborn and refused to use nicknames or that Buffy didn't tell her her preferred name. From what she could remember Buffy only was called Peyton when she was in trouble.

"I wouldn't have my cousin be placed in a home. Of course we'll take her in. I've got to go to tell my sisters but we will be there sometime tomorrow."

"Okay, see you then. Good night..Bye" They hung up giving each other something to think about in preparation for the next day. Susan having to get the many papers prepared with the Summers' lawyer and Prue to tell her sisters about their new charge and the deaths of their aunt and uncle.

"Piper! Phoebe!" Prue yelled upstairs, unsure of where her sisters were in the house.  
"In the attic!" She heard yelled back to her. Rolling her eyes she made her way upstairs to the attic to find both of her sisters looking through their book of shadows.

"Who called?" Phoebe questioned while still leafing through the book.

"Oh..well that was a social worker from LA. . Aunt Poppy and Uncle Hank were in a car accident tonight." At this both Piper and Phoebe looked up at her concerned.

"What about Buffy?" Piper asked, concerned for the young cousin they had not seen in so long.

"Luckily Buffy was not in the car thank god. She had stayed home from where ever they had been going. Unfortunately both Aunt Poppy and Uncle Hank didn't make it."

Both Piper and Phoebe looked shocked with this information.

"The social worker called to see if we would take in Buffy. She has no other living relatives. I said we would. I couldn't let them put Buffy in foster care. She's only fourteen."

"Of course we will take her in." Piper replied with Phoebe nodding in agreement.  
"Well, lets get prepared to go get her. We need to be in LA tomorrow. Oh.. we should probably fill Leo in." Prue realized. "Otherwise it would be quite a shock for him to come home to a random teenager living in the house. Not to mention the shock it would be to Buffy if he orbed straight in without checking."

"Leo!" Piper called expectantly towards the sky. Then white orbs appeared in front of them before a man appeared in their place.  
"What's up?" Leo asked.  
"We will soon have custody of our younger cousin. Just ya know, filling you in." Piper told him. "Also you might want to fill the elders in on it."  
"Oh okay, I'll be sure to do that. Do you need any help with getting a room ready?" He asked.

"Yes, could you clear out the room at the end of the hall and set up the bed? Piper could you get some bedding for it from the closet? I want to at least have her bed set up before we leave for LA in the morning. She probably has some bedding that she'd rather use but for now let's have something on it incase she doesn't want to set it up with her stuff first thing when we get back."

Both Leo and Piper nodded in the affirmative and started to head out.

"Uhh guys one quick question. Does anyone know if Buffy is aware about magic being a family inheritance? " Phoebe asked. "It just kind of seems like a bit of an important piece of information that we'd need to know." The other sisters shrugged before looking at Leo. "I'm not aware that Poppy practiced magic anytime recently. It could be similar to you three and that she bound Buffy's powers. It's hard to say for sure. Poppy definitely had powers coming from the Halliwell line but after your mother's death I'm not aware of her practicing." Leo replied, knowing that the three sisters would not accept that answer. All three gave him an unimpressed look.

"Well there is one person we could summon who would know." Piper strode towards the book and leafed through the pages before finding the spell that she needed.

"Hear these words, hear my cry, spirit from the other side. Come to me, I summon thee, cross now the great divide." She chanted before their grandmother appears in front of them in a swirl of lights before becoming a solid being despite being dead.

"Hello my girls." Penny said with a large smile as she stepped up to hug her granddaughters.

"Hi Grams." The three say to her as they all walk up to hug her back.

"Grams we have a question about Buffy." Prue asked. "Is she aware about the family magic?"

"Poppy bound Buffy's magic when she was a baby so I don't believe she knows that she has powers. Poppy herself didn't practice much magic after Buffy was born. A spell here or there and mainly just summoned me or your mother. Since Poppy's death the binding of her powers is void." Penny told them. "Its somewhat similar to how you three got your powers back."  
"Did Aunt Poppy say anything that we need to know for Buffy?" Phoebe wanted to know of anything to help her cousin's transition to living with them.  
"There are just things that you will have to each learn about each other. We cannot tell you anymore than that. Just know that her destiny is parallel to yours and you should nurture it. Poppy and Hank didn't believe this when they saw it in Buffy and it affected her a great deal in a negative way. It made her hesitant to accept herself. This is all I can tell you girls. I have to go, be safe and I love you all." Penny disappeared with that.

"Well…that was vague and unhelpful." Piper muttered. "So Buffy has a destiny that is parallel to ours but…not the same. What does she mean by that?"

"No clue, but Grams always has liked to be cryptic when it comes to giving us information. On top of this it looks like we will have a witch in training. So along with all of this upheaval that she's already going through, she has to find out she is a witch." Prue did not like all of this happening at once. Sighing, "Let's get her room ready. That's all we can do for tonight. Pretty soon we'll have to get up again to head to LA. After we get back we'll deal with everything else as we get to it." Leaving the attic they all head out to get Buffy's new room ready for her arrival the next day.

Buffy woke up the next morning with a splitting headache and a puffy face from all the crying she did the night before. She didn't want to deal with anyone yet so she only got up in order to wash off her face in the bathroom and take some Advil before going back to bed. She made a thick cocoon out of her blankets around her to try to block out the outside world from her. Unfortunately she could still hear movement in the house. She could hear Susan talking to a man who probably was her parent's lawyer. Something had been mentioned the day before about an estate sale, whatever that means, and how her finances will be set up for her when she is older. She couldn't bring herself to care while Susan had been talking about it. She already knew that her parents had never wanted funerals and that was stated in the will that their lawyer had on record so they are both being cremated as per their wishes. And the lawyer is probably the one setting everything else up as well. In the midst of her thinking the doorbell rang from downstairs. Buffy glanced at her clock on the nightstand. It was after noon. This must mean that her cousins are here already. She got her answer when she heard Susan yell up "Peyton! Your cousins are here." She was getting really tired of being called Peyton instead of Buffy.

She got a bit of satisfaction when she heard one of her cousins say to Susan, "You do know that she prefers to be called Buffy and not Peyton, right?" She couldn't hear if Susan gave a response to that or not.

Sighing she untangled herself from her blankets and made her way downstairs to meet her cousins. They met her at the bottom of the stairs and the oldest one, Prue, took one look at her and pulled her into a warm hug. She couldn't help but start crying again. Being hugged felt so nice after feeling so alone despite Susan being with her over night. She might as well have been alone with how "comforting" Susan had been.

"I am sorry to interrupt but if you could come in here, we need to go over some paperwork regarding Peyton." Susan announced. Prue bit her tongue to not correct the woman again. It wasn't worth her effort and she had to pick her battles. Susan clearly was not going to call Buffy by her preferred name despite being told not even a few minutes ago.

Prue, being the oldest, was the one who was signing the papers, so she transferred Buffy over to Piper who drew her into another tight hug. She went over to deal with the paperwork in order to get it over with. Starting with papers stating that she had custody of Buffy and then others from the lawyer. Mainly just ones saying after the house and other things are sold the money would be put into a trust for Buffy when she came of age.

After all the papers had been signed Susan looked at Prue and decided to discuss Buffy's continued education. "Now as far as schooling what are your plans for her?" She asked. "I feel I should warn you about an incident involving her setting the gym on fire at her last school." Prue raised her eyebrows at this information. Susan didn't elaborate on it any further much to her annoyance. Buffy could hear the conversation from the couch where she was still being hugged by Piper and couldn't help but roll her eyes at Susan talking about the gym incident at Hemery. There was never actual proof connecting her to the gym burning down. It was all just circumstantial in the eyes of the police. In their eyes she was just at the wrong place at the wrong time. Even if it had been her to actually burn it down with vampires in it at the time. "She wasn't charged with the crime but the school did suggest that she did not return." Susan relented in telling Prue who wasn't impressed with how Susan presented this information.

"Currently we are looking at a few different schools to enroll her in. We haven't quite decided but it is between a local private school called Westchester Academy or a charter school that is also nearby. If neither of those work out we have also looked into homeschooling." Prue didn't disapprove of public education but she definitely did not approve of the local public high school's track record lately. Thus leading her to the private school or charter school route for Buffy's education with homeschooling as a backup option. "We plan on taking tours of both schools when we get back so we can decide what is best for her."

"That's great looks like you have a plan. Well it looks like you guys are all set here. You can take her home with you as soon as you are ready. I bid you farewell and good luck." And with that being said, Susan left the fourteen year old with her cousins.

"Buffy lets get you packed up so we can get you all set up back home okay? The lawyer will handle every thing with the house." Buffy just nodded as she got up and led them to her room where they all started packing her things into many bags and boxes for her to take back to San Francisco. Luckily for her they brought Piper's SUV to fit most of her stuff and what they left behind would be shipped to her later in the week. After packing they all piled into the car to make the trip to the Halliwell Manor. Buffy spent the entire time staring out the window, hoping that this was all just a bad dream and that she would wake up any minute. When they pulled up to the manor a man came out the front door.

"Buffy I'd like you to meet my husband, Leo. Leo this is my cousin Buffy." Piper introduced.

"I wish it was under better circumstances but it is nice to meet you Buffy." Leo told her.

"Thanks." Was as much as Buffy could get out for the time being. Leo seemed nice but she couldn't bring herself to give any effort for anything else. He didn't seem to mind her not elaborating more.

"Lets get you into the house." Phoebe grabbed some stuff from the car and along with Buffy went into the house to show her her new room with the rest of the family following behind with more boxes.

An hour later Buffy found herself alone in her new room trying to set up some things to make herself more comfortable. Mr. Gordo sat on her bed by her pillow, her softest blankets were on her bed. She placed other things around the room as she found them in the boxes. Finding her trunk full of slayer supplies she opened it up, pulled out Mr. Pointy and stuck it under her pillow before returning to her trunk, closing it and pushing it to the back of her closet. After most of her clothes were put away she started finding her stuff that she had pretty much told herself to forget about. Like her horseback riding stuff. After becoming the slayer she figured that part of her life was probably over. She wasn't even really sure why it was here now. She hadn't packed it but one of her cousins probably did. Pulling out a picture she ran her finger along the frame, reminiscing of the day the picture was taken. She had been showing at a local horse show and had brought home champion in her division that weekend. She missed sailing over jumps with a horse and wished she could get back to that. But for now it just seemed like an impossibility due to the situation she has recently been put in. Who knows if she could go back to it between her slayer destiny and now with her parents being gone and her being away from the barn she had called home for so long, since she was seven. With riding being gone she felt like she had lost a part of herself along the way. Being a slayer didn't leave her with much free time and as much as she wished she could forget about slaying she knew it would haunt her forever in some way. Sighing she set the picture up on her dresser, not having the heart to put it back in a box. While she was messing with the picture, she failed to see Piper standing at the door watching her.

"You need anything Buffy?" She asked walking into the room and perching on the edge of the bed. Her heart broke at the absolutely broken expression on her cousin's face. "Come here honey." She opened her arms for Buffy who quickly crossed the room and immediately curled into them. Buffy couldn't help but cry into her cousin's shoulder. So much had happened so quickly and she could not refuse the comfort that Piper was clearly trying to offer to her. It was when Buffy's crying reached sobbing level that Piper noticed that the air in the room has an almost electric feel to it. As curious as she was of what Buffy's powers were, she knew this would be the absolute worst time for Buffy to find out that she was a witch and that the cousins she is now living with are witches as well. Not to mention the danger that comes along with it. It would be best for Buffy to be in a calmer state of mind to start with instead of being this upset, it could be dangerous with how she could react to it considering a witch's power being tied to their emotions.

"Shh Buffy. I know its hard. Shh." Piper rubbed the girl's back as she continued to try to comfort Buffy. Eventually, once Buffy had calmed down a bit, she noticed that the room no longer held the electric air and that Buffy was falling asleep her shoulder, worn out from crying.

"Leo." She softly called out, trying to not rouse Buffy in the process. Leo was just down the hall so he walked into the room instead of orbing in like he would from anywhere else.

"Yes?" He looked at his wife cuddling her cousin on the bed. He couldn't help but feel bad for the girl. To lose pretty much everything you know in a very short time and having to move to a new city and live with family you haven't seen in around a decade must be throwing Buffy for a loop.

"Could you help me tuck her in? I don't want to wake her up." He just nodded and carefully picked up Buffy while Piper pulled the bedding back and then he carefully set her down on the bed. Piper then carefully tucked the blankets back in around the sleeping girl. Making sure to use the bedding the girl had already added to her bed and putting Mr. Gordo near her. Moving back to the door the two adults looked back at Buffy. Leo pulled Piper into an embrace.

"Why do I get the feeling that this little girl had to grow up far quicker than she should have? I know her parents just passed but I feel like this stems from even before that." Piper asked. "She was even blamed for burning down the gym of her school but there is apparently no actual proof for anybody to actually pin it on her. I can only imagine the stress she went through when she was being blamed by everyone for that. She was essentially kicked out of her school and lost all of her friends in the process. I can't even begin to think of how painful all of this has to be for her."

"I don't know but I have that feeling too. I'll check with the elders tomorrow and see what they know. And think of it this way, as for school and making friends she will have a fresh start here and with you and your sisters backing her up with any problems along the way she will be fine in the long run. She'll probably open up to you guys about what has happened in her life eventually. For now, let her sleep. She probably didn't get much the other night. We'll pick back up with this in the morning." Leo rationally thought out. Piper just nodded sadly and let him lead her to their room for the night, hoping for a slightly better day tomorrow.


End file.
